Winter is a thoroughly uninspiring time for trying out new walks. No matter how enthusiastic you are about the outdoors, there’s no denying that the browns and greys of winter just don’t match up to the greens and blues of summer, regardless of the walk. Being something of a fair weather walker myself, I find it hard to muster up heaps of enthusiasm to explore new places in winter, instead preferring to stick to old favourites which I know I like (and which I know aren’t going to be a total mud fest).
That being said, I do enjoy those beautiful clear winter days when the temperature plummets and the sky remembers that it can be blue rather than grey. Just after New Year we were treated to a short run of these days right before we had to go back to work, and it would have been absolutely criminal not to take advantage of them for a poke around somewhere new. After all, blue skies make everything better.
Wanting something in the Yorkshire Dales, which I know can offer up a cracking view even in the depths of winter, I scrolled through the Where2Walk website until I found a walk which ticked all of my boxes: around 2 hours, not too hard, not in the back end of nowhere with roads likely to be icy and slippy, and with a decent view or two. Sorted!
The walk was this 3.5 mile circular route taking in Embsay Crag and reservoir. Traversing parts of the Bolton Abbey estate, I really loved this walk and would definitely rate it more highly than a trip to the abbey itself. We parked in a free car park by the reservoir, but there is also another car park in Embsay itself (both car parks are along the route so there’s no extra distance wherever you park).
The first 30% or so of the walk is on the road, which wasn’t so bad (particularly after our A66 escapades the day before) as it was a pretty quiet road and the cars that we did see weren’t travelling very fast. Once off the road, the climb begins, and it’s a steady hike uphill which had us both sweating (probably as the weather forecast said feels like -6 and we’d over-layered, rather than because the climb is horrendously steep). It wasn’t long before we were on Barden Moor with our objective in our sights: Embsay Crag.
Not a properly big hill with a trig point, Embsay Crag is more of a gritstone outcrop than a true summit. Nevertheless, it’s a fine walk and has superb views down over Embsay Reservoir and out over the surrounding moor. It was surprisingly quiet, too: I thought it’s proximity to Skipton might result in it being a busy route but, while not totally deserted, it was an acceptable level of other walkers encountered!
Descending was tricker than going up, with the path being rocky and slippy in places. It probably would’ve been easier to come up this way, but we always like to try and get any road sections out of the way at the start if we can. As we got closer to the reservoir we started to come across a few more people: but again, not what I’d call busy.
Dog friendly rating: 4/5. There is one easy to cross step stile on the walk, and there are a couple of places where dogs could be let off lead. We also saw a few dogs having a paddle in the reservoir. Do keep dogs on leads in fields with livestock (we saw plenty of sheep) and be careful walking along the road.
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